Student Journal - Southern Queensland Student Chapter - Semester 1 in Review
It’s been a big first half of the year for the Southern Queensland Student Chapter (SQSC)! Coming off the momentum of a successful National Mining Games and New Leaders Summit in Brisbane, the 2025 executive team set out to deliver a packed calendar of events designed to grow community, industry connection, and student engagement. Since February, we’ve run a total of 16 events, hosted a Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Welcome Week stall, and sent volunteers to support the Gold Coast Gold Conference for the first time.
We kicked off the year by helping deliver the pilot Minerals Industry Experience (MiEx) program, in partnership with AusIMM, the Minerals Council of Australia, BHP, Rio Tinto, and Peabody. Over 30 students from across the East Coast joined us for an afternoon of hands-on mining games, showcasing the fun and opportunity that comes with being a student in the resources sector. Events like this, alongside our Local Mining Games and our first site tour at Komatsu's Wacol facility, have been instrumental in building community and industry enthusiasm.
Additionally, throughout Semester 1, we hosted a wide range of Tech Talks, BBQs and other networking events, including sessions with companies like BHP, Evolution Mining, and Whitehaven Coal. These were often run in collaboration with other UQ societies such as MAMA, EBESS, MESS, and CESA, strengthening ties across faculties and exposing students from diverse disciplines to opportunities in mining. Our QUT Mining 101 Panel with QUT’s CESS & CEC was another highlight, continuing our commitment to growing engagement across campuses.
We also saw strong participation in social events like Welcome Back Drinks and our first-ever joint Trivia Night with the AusIMM Southern QLD Branch - a standout success we hope to repeat. Looking ahead to Semester 2, we’re excited to build on this momentum with a quality calendar of events, including our Peabody Tech Talk, Day in the Life of a Geo, and our Women in Resources Night, to name a few.
We’re also proud to be sending a record 21 Chapter members to Perth in September to compete in the APAC Mining Games and participate in the New Leaders Summit. None of this would be possible without the generous support of our sponsors: BHP, Peabody, BPEQ, Orica, South32, Whitehaven Coal, Redpath, New Hope Group, and Glencore Coal.
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